João Belchior Marques Goulart (1 March 1919 – 6 December 1976), commonly known as Jango, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 24th president of Brazil from 1961 until a military coup d'état deposed him in 1964. He was considered the last left-wing president of Brazil until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2003.
João Goulart was nicknamed Jango ([ˈʒɐ̃ɡu]), a common nickname for João in the south of Brazil. The Jânio Quadros–João Goulart presidential bid was thus called Jan–Jan (an amalgamation of Jânio and Jango).
His childhood nickname was Janguinho (little Jango). Years later, when he entered politics, he was supported and advised by Getúlio Vargas, and his friends and colleagues started to call him Jango. In his informality and affection, Getúlio Vargas also called him Janguinho.
His grandfather, Belchior Rodrigues Goulart, descended from Portuguese immigrants from the Azores who arrived in Rio Grande do Sul in the second half of the 19th century.
Goulart was born at Yguariaçá Farm, in Itacurubi, São Borja, Rio Grande do Sul, on 1 March 1919. His parents were Vicentina Marques Goulart, a housewife, and Vicente Rodrigues Goulart, an estancieiro (a rancher who owned large rural properties) who had been a National Guard colonel fighting on the side of Governor Borges de Medeiros during the 1923 Revolution. Most sources indicate that João was born in 1918, but his birth year is actually 1919; his father ordered a second birth certificate adding a year to his son's age so that he could attend the law school at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.
Yguariaçá Farm was isolated and his mother had no medical care at his birth, only the assistance of her mother, Maria Thomaz Vasquez Marques. According to João's sister Yolanda, "my grandmother was the one able to revive little João who, at birth, already looked like he was dying." Like most Azorean descendants, Maria Thomaz was a devout Catholic. While trying to revive her grandson, warming him, she prayed to John the Baptist, promising that if the newborn survived, he would be his namesake and would not cut his hair until the age of three, when he would march in the procession of 24 June dressed as the saint. Following the beliefs of the region, his mother dressed him in women's clothes in his first year of life (cf. breeching).
João grew up as a skinny boy in Yguariaçá along with his six sisters, Eufrides, Maria, Nair, Yolanda, Cila, and Neuza. Both of his younger brothers died prematurely. Rivadávia (born 1920) died of meningitis in childhood, and Ivan (born 1925), to whom he was deeply attached, died of leukemia at 33.
João left for the nearby town of Itaqui, because his father Vicente wished to form a partnership with Protásio Vargas, Getúlio's brother, after both leased a small refrigerator house (a cold storage business) in Itaqui from an English businessman. While Vicente ran the business for the following years, João attended the [boarding] school of the Teresian Sisters of Mary, along with his sisters. Although it was a co-educational school during the day, he could not stay overnight at the boarding school with his sisters; he had to sleep at the house of an English couple, who were friends of his family. It was in Itaqui that João developed a taste for both football and swimming.
Upon his return to São Borja, ending his experience as a partner in the refrigerator house, Vicente sent João to the Ginásio Santana, run by the Marist Brothers in Uruguaiana. João attended first to fourth grade at the Santana boarding school, but failed the fifth grade in 1931. Angry with his son's poor achievements at school, Vicente sent him to attend the Colégio Anchieta in Porto Alegre. In the state capital, João lived at a pension with friends Almir Palmeiro and Abadé dos Santos Ayub, the latter of whom was very attached to him.
Aware of João's football skills at school, where he played the right-back position, Almir and Abadé convinced him to try out for Sport Club Internacional. João was selected for the club's juvenile team. In 1932, he became a juvenile state champion. That same year, he finished the third grade of the ginásio (high school) at Colégio Anchieta, with an irregular academic record that would be repeated when he attended the law school at Rio Grande do Sul Federal University. João graduated from high school at Ginásio Santana after being sent back to Uruguaiana.
As a businessman, he built his fortune between 1941 and 1945, making loans at the National Bank of Commerce, Bank of Rio Grande do Sul, and Bank of Brazil, using as collateral all the cattle he had. With this he generated a fortune in cattle, of US$506,630.001 in 1946. Despite ascending to this position, he was a kind man with his employees and humble with those in need, and he did not accept any kind of discrimination.
Sent back to Porto Alegre after graduating from high school, Goulart attended law school to satisfy his father, who desired that he earn a degree. While there, Goulart restored contact with his youth friends Abadé Ayub and Salvador Arísio, and made new friends and explored the state capital's nightlife. It was during that time of a bohemian lifestyle that Goulart acquired a venereal disease, syphilis, which paralyzed his left knee almost entirely. He paid for expensive medical treatment, including a surgery in São Paulo, but he expected that he would never walk normally again. Because of the paralysis of his knee, Goulart graduated separately from the rest of his class in 1939. He would never fully practice law.
After graduating, Goulart returned to São Borja. According to Yolanda Goulart, his depression because of the leg problem was visible. He isolated himself at Yguariaçá Farm. According to his sister Yolanda, his depression did not last long. In the early 1940s, he decided to make fun of his own walking disability in the Carnival, participating in the parade of the block Comigo Ninguém Pode.
Goulart's father died in 1943, and he inherited rural properties that made him one of the most influential estancieiros (ranchers) of the region. Upon the resignation of President Getúlio Vargas and his return to São Borja in October 1945, Goulart was already a wealthy man. He did not need to enter politics to rise socially, but the frequent meetings with Vargas, a close friend of his father, were decisive in Goulart's pursuit of a public life.
The first invitation Goulart received to enter a political party was made by Protásio Vargas, Getúlio's brother, who was in charge of organizing the Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrático – PSD) in São Borja. Goulart declined but later accepted Getúlio Vargas's invitation to join the Brazilian Labour Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro – PTB). He was the first president of the local PTB, and would later become the statewide, then national, president of the party.
In 1947, Getúlio Vargas convinced Goulart to run for a seat in the state assembly. He was elected with 4,150 votes, becoming the fifth-most of 23 deputies. He received more votes than had his future brother-in-law Leonel Brizola, another rising star of the PTB, who was married to Goulart's sister Neusa until her death in 1993. Goulart was not an active member of the assembly, only speaking once on the defensive interests of small cattle farmers in São Borja. He soon became a confidant and political protégé of Vargas, becoming one of the party members who most insistently urged him to launch a presidential candidacy for the 1950 elections. On 18 April 1950, Goulart launched Vargas's candidacy for president and, in the next day, a birthday party was held for the former president at Granja São Vicente, which was owned by Goulart.
In 1950, Goulart was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He received 39,832 votes, second-most in the PTB in Rio Grande do Sul, and took office as a deputy in February 1951. He soon became secretary of the interior and a justice in the administration of Governor Ernesto Dornelles. During his time as secretary, which lasted until 7 March 1952, Goulart restructured the prison system to improve the living conditions of prisoners. He later resigned his job as secretary, at the request of Vargas, to help the president with a political deadlock at the ministry of labor, using his influence on the labor-union movement.